A typical mechanical machine, such as is used in the woodworking or textile industries, commonly utilizes multiple mechanical elements, often referred to as tools, for a single batch run. Each tool requires a particular setup position for a particular job. For example, a woodworking machine, such as a tenoner, may have thirty or more cutting tools. Different fabrication runs may require changing most, if not all, the positions of the various tool heads. The tool head positions are usually controlled by a slide or adjusting screw crank for each axis of motion. The setting and resetting of these tools is very time consuming if done manually. The down time of a machine that is reset manually is exacerbated by current practices of small special order batch fabrication runs.
Automatic setup of these machines has taken two different approaches, each with significant drawbacks. Both approaches commonly require placing a servo mechanism at each slide or crank. Each servo requires at least a gearhead motor, an encoder for feedback, and axis limit switches.
The first conventional approach involves individually hardwiring each automating component (motors, encoders, switches, etc.) of every servo into a central controller which then regulates all of the servos. Unfortunately, the wiring requirements for such a central controller are complex since multiple wires need to run from each servo component to the central controller. The wiring then often costs more than the entire system, and the conversion is complicated.
The second conventional approach to automating the setup of these machines is to place highly sophisticated processors and controls at each servo. The installation costs are therefore lowered, however, the control hardware and the accompanying complex software costs are excessive. In summary, conventional machine initialization approaches require either manual initialization, which demands too much time, or sophisticated devices for automatic initialization, which demand too much control hardware, too much software, and too much investment.